Breastfeeding is obscene. At least that’s what the social networking site Facebook appears to believe. Evidently, it is only appropriate to display breasts for sexual reasons. There are literally thousands of photos of women exposing their assets to greater or lesser extent. But we need to draw the line somewhere. It might be damaging for Facebook members, including many high school and college student, to see women using breasts for their primary purpose, to nourish their babies.
Talk about a boneheaded public relations move. As was only to be expected, women whose pictures of breastfeeding were removed promptly formed the Facebook group “Hey Facebook, Breastfeeding is Not Obscene.” The group has 100,000 members and counting. Here’s their “manifesto”:
Recently, Facebook has started ‘pulling a myspace’ by not allowing people to post profile pictures of babies nursing. The pictures have been reported as ‘obscene’ and have been removed- their posters warned not to repost or fear being kicked off of Facebook.
We’re wondering: what about a baby breastfeeding is obscene? Especially in comparison to MANY other pictures posted all over Facebook that really are obscene.
Facebook, we expect more from you, and we expect you to realize that nursing moms everywhere have a right to show pictures of their babies eating, just like bottle-fed babies have a right to be seen. In an effort to appease the closed-minded, you are only serving to be detrimental to babies, women, and society.
**Facebook, allow breastfeeding pictures, and stop classifying them as obscene!**
According to tech website, ars technica:
As per site policy, Facebook does not allow images depicting female nipples or areolas anywhere on the social network, though this does not include breastfeeding photos. Facebook does, however, remove photos that are reported by users as obscene, which is apparently what happened in Farley’s (and other mothers’) cases. Farley says that the baby covered the nipple and areola in her photos, but that apparently didn’t stop other members from reporting the pictures to Facebook.
Here’s one of the offending photos, so you can judge for yourself.
Yup, that’s obscene. Sure there’s no visible nipple or areola, but OMG there is a baby eating from that breast! Small children could be emotionally scarred by just one peek.
Facebook has jumped head first into a no win situation. It is almost inevitable that the phenomenon of 100,000 women demanding more pictures of breastfeeding will lead to even greater public pressure for them to relent. The ban is unjustifiable on its face, but it is instructive about societal attitudes. Evidently no amount of cleavage is too much if it is displayed for sexual purposes, but when it comes to drinking from a breast, that’s just going too far.
